When Ali Hewson and her husband Bono started Edun with the help of designer Rogan Gregory in 2005, they were the first in a wave of labels forging responsible trade partnerships in Africa that now includes Maiyet, Suno, and ASOS Africa—not to mention KISUA, a new online-only platform for African fashion that launched just last month. Those values resonate particularly strongly with young designers of the diaspora who are beginning to extend their reach outside of the continent, like Nigerian-based line Maki Oh. “The textile techniques that I’m using are dying out because of the demand for fast fashion,” says Oh, who made her solo debut at New York Fashion Week this past September, and sells at downtown boutique Maryam Nassir Zadeh. “I really hope to keep this art alive through my designs.” Working with a small team of artisans, Oh creates modern renditions of Adire, a fabric colored with indigo leaves. She explains that her blue patterns are traditionally used to encode secret messages; so a wedding gift might come woven with a loving affirmation, for example. It takes up to two weeks to make five yards, which can wreak havoc on the production schedule, but for Oh, time-honored practices like these are part of her mission—she plans to open textile training centers to help revive the craft across the country.

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Photo: Courtesy of Maki Oh

That sentiment is shared by British designer Phyllis Taylor. Although her label Sika is based in London, she decided right from the start to draw on a network of expert tailors in Ghana where she sources her fabric. “I was familiar with the culture of dressmaking there because of my family,” says Taylor who grew up watching her Ghanaian mother sew her own clothes. “There’s an attention to detail that you won’t find in a big factory.”

Nigerian designer Lisa Folawiyo has seen her label Jewel by Lisa grow exponentially over the past eight years, from making small custom runs with West African Ankara prints from the local market to designing two collections a year and a diffusion line that sells at the likes of mytheresa.com. Yet the Lagos-based Folawiyo still tries to keep production close to home wherever possible. “There is this impression that the rest of the world has about Africa, and what Africa is about,” she says. “So for me it gives me great pleasure to know that this was done in my own little factory here.”

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Photo: Courtesy of Jewel by Lisa

For Yodit Eklund of Bantu, her commitment to Africa extends beyond the production line. Besides manufacturing her colorful swimsuits in Ethiopia she sponsors surf camps along the western and southern coasts and works with the Children’s Radio Foundation on educational broadcasting across the continent. “Africa is more than just feeding a famished kid today, it’s quite literally the future—the population is approaching one billion, and 50 percent of those people are under 20,” says Eklund who grew up in Ghana, Sudan, Kenya, Ivory Coast, and Egypt, and studied environmental science and economics at the University of California, Berkeley. “Things are changing so fast and there’s so much innovation. When I’m not there I feel like my life is on pause.”